Newspaper Ideology: A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Headlines on Syrian Refugees in Published Newspapers

Discourse refers to what an author signifies by means of a text or what a text really conveys to its reader. Whatever is transmitted through a specific text may address to deeper points referring to ideological intendments. In other words, discourse is grounded on how texts function as meanings of manifesting or prescribing precise perspectives about the world. Recently, communication through media has been the focus of attention in linguistic research. A traditional way of transmitting information is through newspaper broadcasting. Yet, the style of expression employed in such a communication tool as a newspaper changes remarkably from source to source. Headline expressions for instance bare some characteristics inside by keeping the ideology of the newspapers. This study presents an analysis of newspapers from the aspect of Critical Discourse Analysis of newspaper headlines, which is an angle in critical scholarship: an approach of analyzing the style that people or institutions practice language. In other words, this cross-cultural study investigates the ideologies of the newspapers from different cultures. At the end of the study, it was understood that while western editors approach to the issue by looking at the problem in terms of how Europe can withstand such a high flow of Syrians into the union, Turkish media sees the issue referring to the fact that Syrians on the way to Europe are in hard conditions.

Keywords

discourse, critical discourse analysis, newspapers, headlines, Syrian refugees